The Thru-Hiker Diet: Eating On The PCT

Ever wonder what you would eat if you had no access to refrigeration, cooking was limited to boiling water, and you had to carry all your food and cooking materials in a backpack with you through the wilderness?

No?

Glad you asked. The answer is simple, friend: your diet closely resembles that of a poor college student (a lot of ramen, pop-tarts, and miscellaneous food items wrapped in tortillas).

The culinary experience of the Pacific Crest Trail is not something that will get you excited to be out on the trail in the first place, but it is something that will make you appreciate having readily accessible food at a nearby market (it will even get you excited for things as repulsive as McDonald’s).

MY RESEARCH

Do I have food? Yes. Okay then, I’ve been successful.

When I was hashing out my food situation I read a number of hiker blogs and was admittedly confused.

People were actually calculating how many calories they intended to eat each day? Were these people crazy? They had every meal and snack meticulously organized, and pre-planned. How could anyone ever expect to accurately do this? My conclusion? These people are dumb. Post-PCT, my opinion has not changed.

Planning every calorie for every day of a five month thru-hike is an embarrassing waste of time. Unless you have some serious dietary restrictions or health issues, then forget planning your food.

So how did I decide how much food to put in my resupply boxes? Easy. I just filled each box with as much food as I could. Better too much than too little, right? It was always too much.

Planning beyond my next resupply was rarely necessary out on the trail, and I would recommend that future hikers not worry about having their food planned to the tea (HA! GET IT?! Yeah, I guess it was a bit of a stretch). Unless you have thru-hiked before, then trust me, you have no idea what foods you will end up hating, what you will end up loving, or how much of it your body will need over the course of your hike.

MEALS

The King Burrito – I almost ate two – I almost died.

During the planning stages of the PCT, many people sort out their food into “meals” and “snacks”. An honest mistake.

As my time on the Pacific Crest Trail wore on, I found myself no longer caring what was a “meal” and what was a “snack”. When I was hungry, I ate. If I was taking a long break, then I ate more. It’s simple. I do not understand how people turn something as complicated as “when you get hungry, you eat” into something it would appear you need a degree in nutritional science to figure out.

I laughed whenever anyone asked me how many “breakfasts”, or “lunches”, or “dinners” I was packing out from town. “I have this much,” I would say pointing to my food bag, and that was the end of it. It becomes easy to predict when you will be arriving at your next resupply, and whether or not you will need to ration your food. Stressing about every resupply is not necessary.

Some days I ate cheese and tortillas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; some days I ate macaroni for breakfast, three Snickers for lunch, and cereal for dinner; and some days I ate only Clif bars. Regardless of what I ate at what time of the day, all that mattered was that I was putting calories in my body (and hopefully they would come out the other end without issue).

SNACKS

Cheese and Doritos burrito – an excellent trail invention.

SNACKS! I love snacks.

Perhaps the greatest indulgence of the Pacific Crest Trail – you get to eat as many snacks as you want.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough incentive to hike the PCT right there. Get your permit now!

Should you find yourself slightly less enthused when presented with the prospect of infinity snacks, then just imagine: your most favoritest of foods, guilelessly at your fingertips at all times of the day, everyday. Unless of course you run out. Or your favorite food is hamburgers. Or sushi. Or salad (really, salad?). Or really anything that isn’t candy or trail mix. But let’s not lose sight of what’s really important here: snacks.

Snacking on the trail became easier as my hiker legs came into form, and my body’s demand for rest become less frequent. By Washington I was taking just a few short water breaks and one longer lunch break per day (with the exception of my daily poo break, which of course remained as long, and therefore, as enjoyable as possible).

CARRYING IT ALL

Packed full of goodness.

My backpack was accessible via a bottom zipper opening to the sleeping bag compartment, and for the first 700 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, this is where I kept my food bag.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Not only did this smash my precious pop-tarts, but it exploded my olive oil, and it meant that I needed to remove my sleeping pad each time I wanted to get at some snackage.

When I got to Kennedy Meadows and had to begin carrying a bear canister, this strategy was no longer acceptable (the bear canister would not fit into said pocket). My sleeping bag moved to its rightful compartment, and my bear canister sat upright on top of it. This system was far superior to the one I used for the entirety of the desert.

When the bear canister finally got ditched north of the Sierras, the food storage arrangement remained the same. I am sad when I think about how long it took me to figure this out.

Everything that was not individually wrapped was stripped of excess packaging and put into quart sized Ziploc bags. I never had any problems with food leakage from Ziploc bags (not even my Gatorade powder – also in a Ziploc), and they were reusable for at least a couple of resupplies (also good for packing out trash and toilet paper).

BUT WAIT, SO WHAT DID YOU EAT?

I guess I managed to skip over the specifics, didn’t I?

What follows is what I ate (aka what you can expect to eat) on the Pacific Crest Trail (ordered from approximately most eaten to least eaten):

Hey Kevin, not sure where I’m calling other hikers dumb here – definitely not my intention. Just trying to share everything through the lens of my own experience and from my own point of view. Glad you’re enjoying the blog!

Jon

You’re calling them dumb at the beginning of the post:
“They had every meal and snack meticulously organized, and pre-planned. How could anyone ever expect to accurately do this? My conclusion? These people are dumb.”

I am interested in doing the PCT, but the desert and my tendency to succumb to heat exhaustion have me worried. I have read a few trail stories and some say the heat is brutal and others say it wasn’t as bad as they thought it was going to be. I know there is no right answer, but even if I do most of my hiking in the cool of the evenings…for at least some of the day…I will still have to endure the heat of the days. Any advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.

The heat really can be variable depending on the year and your luck with the weather, but it will be hot (not humid) no matter what. You can avoid the heat, if you want, by hiking at night or during the early morning. Some people carry umbrellas, while others choose to simply cover up or use sunscreen. Perhaps a post about avoiding heat in the desert is in order.

Jester1137

Start at dawn. You should be ready to go when you can see. Take a siesta. Not kidding. 11 am to 3 pm = the suck. You can take that time off and be more efficient for the 10 hours daylight remaining to you.

Wear a good, broad rimmed hat. Focus on water, and make sure you have some decently salty foods. Be aware that your sweat will evaporate very quickly, and you *will* underestimate how much water you’re using if you’re not familiar with arid environments.

If you have the capacity at all, vary your gear load for the southern half. You really won’t need much in the way of warms, you WILL need water. This would be a good area to skip the stove and just cold camp to carry that much more water. You don’t have that far between food resupplies through much of the desert, and you should still have a padding of reserve fat this early on.

If you move with the herd, or a couple weeks ahead, the caches will probably be full. Don’t count on them for survival but accept them for comfort 🙂

In dry heat, if you have enough water and keep the direct sun from baking your brain you will be fine. I really don’t like the heat, but I’ve done a lot of outdoor work as well as hiking in eastern San Diego County/ southern Riverside County during the summer. Those two rules – protect your head and camel up – will get you through.

Darrell

I’m a runner. When I’m not in running season (usually October to May, for me) I eat a pretty normal amount of food. Then when running season ramps up, I turn into a raging calorie consuming monster. I try hard in the early stages to not lose weight so that I can have strength to handle big weeks when I get to peak running stages. Keep in mind, I’m not some world class (or any class) runner. Weekly mileage is about 50 – 65 miles, usually accomplished in something like 8 hours a week. If I don’t eat enough…I bonk in so many aspects of life. So someday, when I’m packing for a thru hike…I’m going to become a nutritional scientist. Some of the days with your daily intake hardly get me through the day when I’m sitting at a desk all day, let alone walking a trail 8 – 10 hours.

Bonking on trail is not the most enjoyable thing (although it’s also not the least enjoyable thing – I’m looking at you ass chafe), but as the saying goes, “just keep eating” (that’s a saying, right?).

I am planning to hike the PCT in 2017. I’m doing tons of research and obviously have time, but I’m curious if anyone has some info on where to look for exactly how much food to pack, how much to send myself in each package, and anything like that. Thanks!

Dan Kaschel

Hey Jamie! I’m planning on hiking the PCT in 2017 as well. Drop me an e-mail; maybe we can help each other coordinate. dipique@gmail.com

ABOUT

Halfway Anywhere started out in 2011 as a way for me to share my travels with friends and family. Since then it has grown tremendously into a not only a collection of my own stories and travels, but as a resource for anyone looking to step into the world of adventure.

My mission is to provide and share information gathered from firsthand experience to make travel more accessible to everyone looking to escape those prohibitive zones of comfort.